Fall Into Sky
by misscam
Summary: On day one, he comes to take her away. [GSR, postGrave Danger]


Fall Into Sky

by Camilla Sandman

Disclaimer: Not mine. CBS's characters, I just let them have some fun.

Author's Notes: Faint mentions of Grave Danger.

II

On day one, he comes to take her away.

He doesn't ask, except with his eyes and Sara gives her acknowledgement in silence, packing a bag and loading it into his car. He has packed too, she sees, and she wonders where they are going.

Las Vegas is soon pushed behind them, and still he drives and still she doesn't ask. The road stretches and curves, cutting through the landscape like a snake of civilization, a tendril of human touch in the vast wilderness. Desert and heat and summer. She watches it through the glass, feeling the hiss of air conditioning on her skin.

She is tired.

The glass is cool against her cheek and she sleeps, dreaming of glass cages and ants and death. It is not a nightmare, but chaos theory backwards, seeing what might have been had the butterfly flapped differently. Her cage, her despair, her death.

Grissom wakes her and the day has become night and heat has become promised cold. He guides her with a hand to the hotel, the sign with "Vacancies" hissing on and off. Somewhere in the dark, crickets answer it, as if thinking it a mating call.

She gets her own room and Grissom wishes her a good night, his voice a mating call to her blood.

She sleeps and dreams again.

II

On day two, she dresses for the heat in light clothes, realising wherever they are going, it is not work related. The road is much the same, as is the silence, but the landscape subtly shifts before her eyes. The desert loses its grip and green springs forth, distant hills almost blue with green trees against a light blue horizon.

She's not sure where they are and doesn't care, resting in the safety of the car and its cool air.

They stop at a resting spot near a small lake, and Grissom offers her ice tea from a cooling container. She wonders how long he has planned this, but his smile offers nothing but speculation.

The sun glints on the water and she stares at it for a long time, feeling the stillness of it echo within her.

II

On day three, they leave another silent motel and set forth again, going nowhere and everywhere with the wind. He puts on the radio this time, and they alternate singing along to old songs they don't even know the words to. It doesn't matter. The song is in the rhythm, not the words.

They stop at a hilltop and watch the view, Nevada stretching out before them, the sky stretching above. In a flash, she remembers a picture of her childhood, perched on her father's shoulder, flying against the sky, falling into it.

She didn't realise she had even one happy childhood memory and she lets it fill her as Grissom takes her hand and they are both flying while standing still.

II

On day four, they have spent the night in the car, no motel drawing them in. She remembers no dream, only the sound of Grissom's breath curling itself around her, wrapping her in safety. He smiles shyly at her when he awakes and within her dawns hope.

He drives more slowly this day, stopping often to show her something, or to hunt bugs. He's brought a box for a few specimens too, and she teases him for his bugs until he threatens to drop one inside her shirt.

They stop in a little town and get supplies and when the clerk calls them man and wife, Grissom does not object. She wonders, hopes, breathes and watches the heat waver and fade as night crawls in.

II

On day five, he kisses her, as naturally as if it is not a hesitant first kiss, but the millionth kiss of a devoted husband instead. His lips seem to know hers, and the touch is all gentle and no unleashed passion. She wonders, but kisses him back anyway.

The car is warm against her back, the pine they've stop to look at raging tall above them, dropping a little shade. She can feel the sun on her arms as she slinks them around Grissom's waist, holding him to her, as if the wind would sweep him away from her otherwise.

The air smells of summer and his kiss tastes of a relieving breeze.

II

On day six, she sleeps with him, the sun blazing against her eyelids as they rest in green grass and summer heat. He hums as she rests her head against his chest and the wind hums back, wild and free and untamed.

She wonders if she will ever truly tame him to her when humans still cannot tame the wind, but finds that perhaps it does not matter. Perhaps she needs not tame it if it will bear her willing.

"Why?" she asks and feels his fingers brush through her hair.

"Because I wanted to."

Answer and not answer, but she accepts it quietly nevertheless.

He kisses her eyelids and she sleeps for a while, dreaming of nothing but wind.

II

On day seven, they both swim in a quiet lake. The water is as cool as she imagined it, and it parts and embraces her as she moves. She lets herself drift in it, watching the blue sky, knowing as with water, the colour is an illusion. Fall into water and fall into sky, and it is no longer blue.

She lets Grissom dry her afterwards and tells him of the illusion of blue. He nods and she knows he understands, because understanding is often more in silence than in words.

They sit on the edge of the lake and watch the falling sun reflected and she leans against him, still tired, but at least now knowing how to rest.

II

On day eight, they drive home.

He doesn't say it is home they're headed for, but she begins to recognise the familiar landscape and knows the road's end beckons. Work and death and the haunt of Nick's trauma are waiting. No rest is forever, but nothing ever is, not even the sky's blue.

"Why?" she asks again, as Las Vegas lingers on the horizon, stretching out its embrace to welcome them back.

"Because it could have been you I almost lost," he says and smiles, faintly, sadly.

"It wasn't me."

He looks at her, his eyes an illusion of blue she falls into. "Now I know that."


End file.
